Rampage: footage captured from the Met Police helicopter shows Nicholas Salvador
A police helicopter recorded this shocking footage of Nicholas Salvador, 25, destroying everything in his path armed with a machete and a wooden pole.
In two video clips an Old Bailey jury watched the moments leading up to the severing of 82-year-old café owner Palmira Silva.
Then minutes after the murder they saw Salvador get closer and ever closer to two children playing innocently in their own garden.
As he gets within three metres of them PC Steven Robertson launches a rescue by defying an order for all unarmed officers to withdraw from the scene.
He scrambles onto a flat roof to desperately warn the children and they are later passed to safety through a broken window at the front of the house.
Stripped to the waist, Salvador continues to break down garden fences, vaulting walls and also attacked the brother and sister of his best friend Dominic Thorne as they sat petrified in a car in the street.
As the videos were played yesterday there was a tangible air of helplessness from the helicopter crew that they could do nothing to help those in peril on the ground while recording every moment.
A voice on the helicopter can be heard saying: "If there's anyone inside get them away from the premises. We do have children in these back gardens. We need to evacuate them as soon as possible.
"We need units inside 304 I would say to save life. We've got an officer on the roof directing children in.
"This man has decapitated a person already. He's at the front window armed with a knife building a barricade.
"We can confirm the lady is dead. she has been decapitated.
"He's now smashing the premises up. We're evacuating kids from next door."
Paranoid schizophrenia sufferer Salvador was found today not guilty of murder on the grounds of insanity and ordered to be detained indefinitely at Broadmoor maximum security hospital under the Mental Health Act.
After passing sentence the Recorder of London Nicholas Hilliard praised the officer for his courage.
He told the court: “It’s quite clear to me a number of police officers were involved in the efforts to capture and restrain the defendant. They were all motivated to protect innocent residents and bystanders.
“It should be publicly acknowledged that PC Stephen Robertson got onto the roof to alert the two young children disregarding the well-meant instruction that unarmed officers should stay back. He should be highly and publicly commended for that.”
The first Met officer on the scene, Insp Doug Skinner, told today how, unarmed, he had confronted Salvador.
“I knew he was armed, had already killed and that many people were in immediate danger - Nothing can fully prepare you for that type of call or the scene we encountered.
“We decided we would have to remove residents before Salvador killed someone else.
“The helicopter tracked Salvador and spotted children playing in nearby gardens. We genuinely thought he would kill those children and we were filled with utter terror.
“We pulled up outside of an address close to the victim’s and smashed through the double glazed windows calling out to residents.
“I then saw Salvador, stripped to the waist and standing in someone’s front room, armed with a blood-stained machete. I engaged him in conversation as he made stabbing motions towards me.
“I knew I had to buy enough time for the rest of the team to get residents, especially those kids, out of the area. Officers smashed through windows to pull them all to safety before Salvador could be contained in another house.
“All units acted with extreme courage. Armed officers, unarmed officers and rookies - all working together, putting their own lives at risk to save others."
The court also heard the devastating impact the horrific murder has had on Mrs Silva’s family including six grandchildren and one great grandchild.
Her daughter Celestina Muis said: “The way in which my mother died has had a devastating effect on us all.
Chilling footage: Nicholas Salvador on the street in Edmonton“To be taken from us in such a cruel way it is difficult to come to terms with. What happened on that day, and also all the aftermath of what happened.
“We, as a family, no longer feel safe and feel really insecure, drained and have to work hard to focus.
“A few of us are having regular counselling to help us to come to terms with what has happened. Emotionally nothing is the same. A lot of joy in everyday things has gone.
“We have, and are experiencing a range emotions, some of us feel constant anger, which makes it difficult to deal with everyday situations, especially fraught ones.
“This means we tend to get easily agitated and simply want to run away and hide. I am also suffering with erratic sleeping patterns and regular panic attacks, which leave me feeling exhausted and even more frustrated.
“Our children feel scared and insecure, it has taken away their innocence and they have had to suddenly deal with emotions and circumstances that they should never had to.
“All her grandchildren have all been affected in different ways, unable to sleep at night, scared to be left alone, fearful, disbelief.
“Our mother still worked and loved life and the people around her. She was very much the glue that held us all together.
“Our lives have been torn apart knowing what happened to my mother. Good people have been turned into nervous, angry, anxious individuals who struggle to get through the week like they used to and find it hard to focus, show emotions, run their businesses and don’t have the ability to trust others like they used to.”
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